


amateur tasseography

by seek_its_opposite



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, season of secret sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 19:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17793107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seek_its_opposite/pseuds/seek_its_opposite
Summary: This is the cold of being wrapped in each other’s arms at the end of the world.





	amateur tasseography

It doesn’t matter. This is what Mulder whispers in her ear when she wonders aloud what the temperature is (14 degrees), what time it is (9:06 a.m., but he unplugged the alarm clock last night), what day it is (Saturday, but she knows this). The frost trimming his windows makes it look like the whole city is sinking into ice. Outside it’s an empty cold, a cold like there’s nothing out there at all, and they like it, even though it feels like dying. Maybe because of it. This is the cold of being wrapped in each other’s arms at the end of the world.

So they linger in Mulder’s bed, Scully’s hand snaking up his chest—“like _ice_ ,” he teases. She scoots closer in response and spreads her fingers as wide as she can across his ribs, tangling her legs with his.

“Scully,” he almost laughs. “You are so cold.”

“Am I?” She raises an eyebrow. Dana Scully plays ignorant too well.

He manages the faintest nod. “Uh-huh.”

“Well,” she says, drawing it out, like she’s thinking. Like she’s working out a theory in a case. All at once she maneuvers herself until she’s hovering over him, practically nose to nose. Her biceps flex as she leans down.

“You’re warm.”

 

*** 

He makes pancakes while she showers. He’s microwaving the syrup when she slip-slides into the kitchen in two layers of socks and leans against him from behind, hands on his hips, her damp hair soaking into his sweatshirt.

“Can’t keep your hands off me today, can you Scully?”

“Nothing personal,” she mumbles into the space between his shoulder blades. “I’m only using you for your body heat.”

Then, because she knows where his mind goes, she spins him around to face her, stretches up on her toes, and kisses him until she almost loses her balance.

Mulder takes her face in both of his hands. With mock solemnity and warm wrinkled eyes he says, “Guess you don’t want those pancakes then.”

They eat on the couch, with their backs against opposite armrests and their feet pressed together in the middle. They pile sticky plates on the coffee table and leave them there. The frost on the windows does not melt. 

 

*** 

They lose the afternoon to a Hitchcock marathon on cable, Scully and Mulder under the same blanket watching Tippi Hedren fend off a flock of gulls. Outside the cold digs its claws into the phone lines and waits for its cue to tear apart the sky.

“This movie terrified me when I was a kid,” Mulder says. 

“Terrified _you_?” She’s indignant, possessive of her childhood nightmares. “It’s set in _California_.”

“It’s a universal theme, Scully. Nature on the attack.”

“Mulder, what happened to ‘Nature is indifferent to whether we live or die’?”

She listens to him. It hits him too quickly what it means to be the object of Scully’s attention, and he almost takes her by the shoulders and tells her to stop. Almost says _Scully, there’s a whole world out there; what are you doing listening to me?_ But of course the world out there is just grey, ice grey plunging into a sharp nothing. They are all that is left. And he’s selfish; he wants her here.

So he says, “Sometimes indifference looks a lot like malice.”

Scully nods. She pictures him at 12 years old, sitting knobby-kneed on the couch while his mother cries. She’s seen the half-burned photographs of the boy he used to be and cut open the woman who lit the match.

She lays her head on his lap. She says, “Sometimes.”

 

***

But this is also indifference: the space to fly under the radar. Bureaucratic incompetence. Wildly irresponsible expense reports getting the stamp of approval. A well-timed cold front. Sometimes, she thinks, indifference is being allowed to work for seven years with the man you were sent to debunk. Lately she’s imagined the universe as a Rube Goldberg machine, a distant clatter of equal and opposite reactions whispering _Wait, wait, you’ll have your time to rest._

 

***

“Scully,” Mulder says, “close your eyes.”

Scully, sitting cross-legged on the bed, purses her lips and stares. The lamplight cutting across her face makes him think of Grace Kelly on the phone in the dark, always a step ahead.

“Did you learn another magic trick?” she asks.

He chuckles. “Yeah,” he says. “Close your eyes.”

Scully, who goes to the airport in the middle of the night for him, who listens when he talks, shuts her eyes like she’s in prayer. She sighs, teasing, “There’s no place like home.”

Mulder reaches for her palms and wraps her fingers around a steaming mug. She opens her eyes to appraise her gift.

“You made me tea?” She’s amused. “Mulder, I heard the kettle whistle.”

He shakes his head. “Take a deep breath.”

Scully brings the mug up to her nose and inhales deep, and her eyes go wide. “Is this—” She tilts her face up at him in dawning admiration. “The little tea shop? In Portland?”

He's heard the story: Years ago, when Dana decided she didn’t want to practice medicine, Melissa whisked her off to the Pacific Northwest on an impulsive weekend getaway. They stumbled into a snug tea shop with lace tablecloths and a 45-minute wait and wound up sharing, along with a richly spiced slice of cake, a pot of tea that looked on paper like it couldn’t work: blackberry and rosehip and honeybush, laced with vanilla and hints of chocolate. It was the best surprise she’d ever tasted, and Melissa said, _Exactly_. Missy tried to read the tea leaves—she knew how, she insisted; she read a book about it—and told her sister she saw a ladder, which meant travel. Every time Scully packs a bag, even now, she thinks, _Well, Missy_.

“When?” Scully asks.

“The Gunmen were in town for a conference,” Mulder shrugs. “I asked Frohike to swing by.”

“Mulder, thank you.” She beams.

He blushes. 

“I presume you’ll want to read my tea leaves?” she asks.

“I hadn't planned on it." He honestly looks surprised.

“No?” 

“It’s just warm, Scully,” Mulder says, hands at his sides. This is all that is left: just them. “I just wanted to keep you warm.”


End file.
